Finding the right balance between publishing high-quality content and search engines indexing your website is key to a successful marketing strategy. Copy that is not optimised properly for SEO purposes can end up wasting valuable time, money and energy.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the term used for the methods and strategies used to ensure the visibility of websites on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). SEO optimised content has been written to rank well on SERPs, highlighted the key elements of the website and terms most often used. The use of correct URLs, title, ALT tags and sitemaps all affect SEO visibility.

Place primary keywords in the right places:
Keyword-rich phrases should be used in your headlines and throughout the body of your posts. Placing keywords in both the headline and body will help both search engines and readers searching for that particular topic or phrase. Be careful not to use too many keywords for the sole purpose of SEO as Google will penalise keyword stuffing which will, in turn, decrease your site’s ranking.

Include long-tail keywords:
Long-tail keywords are longer and more specific variations of your primary keywords. These are words that generally get less search traffic but will have a higher conversion value and better quality. For example, if your primary keyword is ‘photographer,’ a long tail keyword phrase could include ‘photographer for weddings’ and so on.

Update your content regularly:
Search engines favour recent posts as they are more relevant and useful to the reader. Updating your content regularly helps to improve your rankings and provide readers with up-to-date news and information about your business.

Write for your audience, not search engines:
When writing content for your site, don’t lose sight of the audience, as they are the ones reading your copy. If your site is SEO optimised but does not deliver interesting, relevant and engaging content for your readers, it is unlikely you will be selling a great deal.

Engage in internal linking:
Internal linking can help search engines crawl business websites more effectively, help specific pages rank well for user search terms and point online users to the content that is relevant to what they are looking for.